The Athletic Base Ball Club of Philadelphia (also known as the Philadelphia Athletics) was a prominent National Association, and later National League, professional baseball team that played in the second half of the 19th century.

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The city of Philadelphia "had been a baseball town from the earliest days of the game", fielding amateur teams since at least the early 1830s. In 1860, James N. Kerns formed a club, simply named "Athletic Base Ball Club", that soon dominated amateur play in the area (Jordan 1999). Harper's Weekly chronicled a match between Athletic and Atlantic of Brooklyn for the baseball championship in 1866. A famous Harper's illustration shows the Athletic players in uniforms with the familiar blackletter "A" on front.

When newspapers developed stand-alone game scores and league standings, the club was termed Athletic (Base Ball Club being dropped in any case). In prose the team was commonly called the Athletics, plural, and later generations have usually called both club and team the "Philadelphia Athletics".

The Athletics were one of the most successful National Association teams, winning the first pennant with a record of 21 wins and 7 losses (.750), two games ahead of the Boston Red Stockings and Chicago White Stockings. Actually, the race was much closer: the primary official criterion then was neither games nor winning percentage, but wins, and the three clubs finished in the order given with 21, 20, and 19 victories. The final game of the season, played on October 30 in Brooklyn, saw Athletic defeat Chicago, 4–1, clinching the title. (Nate Berkenstock, a 40-year-old amateur who played right field for Philadelphia that day due to injuries, made his only big-league appearance in that game.)

While Boston dominated the NA, winning the other four pennants, the Athletics and New York Mutuals also fielded teams every year, with Philadelphia winning a few more games overall but never challenging Boston.[1]

Dick McBride served as regular pitcher for more than a decade and as captain throughout the NA seasons, which gives him manager credit today. Other star players include Al Reach in the 1860s and Cap Anson who played from 1872 to 1875 (Anson took over as captain near the very end of the 1875 season).

After having spent fifteen years as a strong and stable club, the Athletics fared poorly in the new National League of Professional Base Ball Clubs, finishing seventh with 14 wins in 60 games, 38 wins behind Chicago. Near the end of the season, the financially troubled team refused to make a western road trip, finishing with 35 games played at home and 25 away.[6] Mutual of New York also refused, owing the western teams nine home games. Both clubs were expelled from the National League, which simply contracted from eight to six for the 1877 season.

Championship matches with professional teams (1869–1870) and with professional leagues (1871–1876)

Year

W

L

T

Games

Rank in games (in wins)

1869

15

7

22

3 (tie 2nd in wins)

1870

26

11

1

38

2 (3rd)

1871

21

7

28

6 (1st place)

1872

30

14

3

47

4 (4th place)

1873

28

23

1

52

6 (5th place)

1874

33

22

55

6 (3rd place)

1875

53

20

4

77

3 (3rd place)

1876

14

45

1

60

7 (7th place)

Source for season records: Wright (2000) has published records for dozens of NABBP teams each season, relying on a mix of game and season records in contemporary newspapers and guides. Dozens of leading clubs by number of matches are included, as are many others. The records do not consistently cover either all games played or all championship matches between NABBP members.

^Except for the Mutuals in 1874, shorter-lived clubs finished second. Judged by winning percentage, a later criterion, Athletic in 1875 achieved the sixth best season in NA history behind only the five pennant winners. But the criterion was wins, an incentive for clubs to complete their series. In the five NA seasons Athletic ranked 6–4–6–6–3 in games played, 1–4–5–3–3 in wins. --And the club ranked terminally 7 in games played for 1876.

^The Athletic "owed" each of the four western teams two games at its home ballpark, having played only three each. It played only three games in New York, and the Mutuals played only four in Philadelphia, another symptom of the Mutual-Athletic decline. But the league would not have expelled two clubs for shirking on their visits to each other.